Interesting. A good reason for me to purchase both Tooth and Claw and also The Devils Soapbox.

Incidentally Bruce Lee is one of my all time heroes. I have been studying not only his films but also his philosophy since I was a young boy. He took what was being taught and expanded and evolved upon it through personal experience and experimentation.

Here is a quote attributed to him on the subject as I think it it relevant to this discussion;

'Learn the principle, abide by the principle, and dissolve the principle. In short, enter a mold without being caged in it. Obey the principle without being bound by it. LEARN, MASTER AND ACHIEVE!!!

Knowledge in martial arts actually means self-knowledge. A martial artist has to take responsibility for himself and accept the consequences of his own doing. The understanding of JKD is through personal feeling from movement to movement in the mirror of the relationship and not through a process of isolation. To be is to be related. To isolate is death. To me, ultimately, martial arts means honestly expressing yourself. Now, it is very difficult to do. It has always been very easy for me to put on a show and be cocky, and be flooded with a cocky feeling and feel pretty cool and all that. I can make all kinds of phoney things. Blinded by it. Or I can show some really fancy movement. But to experience oneself honestly, not lying to oneself, and to express myself honestly, now that is very hard to do.'

Generally, unless you build the techniques of a martial art, not the forms, into muscle memory, they are almost worthless in a real fight.

Muscle memory, for those who don't know, is the constant repetition of a technique (be it painting, writing music, anything that takes practice really) so that you need not think about it anymore, it happens automatically when needed which allows the mind to improvise if called for, allowing the individual to think on their feet.

Here is my take on forms training.

I think that they are basically a good way of training certain techniques and movements into your muscle memory but must not be taken as 'when fighting this is what you must always do'.

In my experience forms training is generally a way to introduce new techniques as a student progresses. "These are the new techniques you will be learning and to make it easy for you to remember the new techniques they have been organized into a sequence for you to commit to memory"

Muscle memory works like this; perform an action enough times and eventually it will become instinct.Once a student becomes has become familiar with the new techniques then it is time to expand upon what they know so that they can instinctively use that technique in an effective manner.

An analogy I like to make is comparing forms training to shadow boxing. Commit yourself to each and every action contained within the form as though you were fighting an adversary and then you will be able to use each action effectively whether in training or in actual fighting because your mind and your body will have spent many hours performing those actions and they come naturally to you.

So to summarize and expand upon what I have just said, I train people with a clear progression from 1 technique, 2 form, 3 applied technique 4 sparring and then 5 shadow boxing.

Shadow boxing must come last because unless a person has experienced violent fighting or at least sparring it is very difficult for them to truly grasp how they would react under those conditions.

I used to be friends with a 6'8 Lithuanian guy who was pretty much a giant. He once got hit by a taser from a man in a car he was walking past. He once got attacked by a man with a car wrench, and one time which is going to prove the real exception to what you just said, he was attacked by a fat 16 year old boy whilst the Lithuanian walked with me and THREE other guys. Of course, he kicked the boy in the face and levelled him and we just carried on walking, but you would be surprised how many tough people are attacked against the odds!

I did just notice you said you are not 100% confident with English, though, so maybe just treat my post as a story, not a contradiction. Perhaps you meant in 'most' situations that a person attacks a weaker person.

It does increase your odds of avoiding to be attacked to act like the stronger of the two. But the way you're describing it sounds like your friend met some really fucked up people. That happens too. I would imagine your friend has been rejected by quite alot of "attackers" considering how many fights he has already been in.

Anyways I wasn't there when it happened but it sounds like your friend really gave him (the fat 16 year old boy) a bit more than necessary. Perhaps a bitchslap would have done the job just as well, it sounded like that boy had never been in a fight before, considering the target he chose.

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Each misdirected act of compassion is a waste of magical energy.

Yeah I cut a few corners in the tale. There was a good 5 minutes of him taking punches from the kid and saying 'look mate, this is stupid back the fuck off' and us all stood watching shaking our heads in disbelief. I think the boot to the face was just a much needed full stop in the end, and it saved him having to crouch down to get a punch in.

The REAL punchline though was when he met the kid at a family party and it turned out to be his cousin!

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Einstein can't be classed as witlessHe claimed atoms were the littlestWhen you did a bit of splittingen-nessFrighten everybody shitless- Ian Dury

Generally, unless you build the techniques of a martial art, not the forms, into muscle memory, they are almost worthless in a real fight.

Muscle memory, for those who don't know, is the constant repetition of a technique (be it painting, writing music, anything that takes practice really) so that you need not think about it anymore, it happens automatically when needed which allows the mind to improvise if called for, allowing the individual to think on their feet.

Here is my take on forms training.

I think that they are basically a good way of training certain techniques and movements into your muscle memory but must not be taken as 'when fighting this is what you must always do'.

In my experience forms training is generally a way to introduce new techniques as a student progresses. "These are the new techniques you will be learning and to make it easy for you to remember the new techniques they have been organized into a sequence for you to commit to memory"

Muscle memory works like this; perform an action enough times and eventually it will become instinct.Once a student becomes has become familiar with the new techniques then it is time to expand upon what they know so that they can instinctively use that technique in an effective manner.

An analogy I like to make is comparing forms training to shadow boxing. Commit yourself to each and every action contained within the form as though you were fighting an adversary and then you will be able to use each action effectively whether in training or in actual fighting because your mind and your body will have spent many hours performing those actions and they come naturally to you.

So to summarize and expand upon what I have just said, I train people with a clear progression from 1 technique, 2 form, 3 applied technique 4 sparring and then 5 shadow boxing.

Shadow boxing must come last because unless a person has experienced violent fighting or at least sparring it is very difficult for them to truly grasp how they would react under those conditions.

I thought that was just what I said about muscle memory, you just shortened how I defined it. In the Army, we do a Helluva lot of training, which builds, well, muscle memory.

As far as forms go. When you practice forms, or even sparring, you are doing so with someone else who is also trained in the same style, this is not going to be true in a real fight.

It is of my opinion that by training in a form, and building it to muscle memory, you will essentially go into a form when confronted in real life. I say this only because I have seen it happen, and the martial artist got his ass handed to him on a silver platter.

By practicing a technique, not a form, you isolate that technique and will not have to worry about the potential of going into a form. Training in specific techniques with a partner can help, however, for obvious reasons.

But honestly, you will never have time to think about, and perform a certain technique in a street fight, so it all comes down to doing whatever it takes to get away as little harmed as possible.

Again, my opinions, I am not trying to contridict what you are saying.

It does increase your odds of avoiding to be attacked to act like the stronger of the two. But the way you're describing it sounds like your friend met some really fucked up people.

Another thing to consider is that masochism is often a motivation in picking a fight with someone. Although they’ll never consciously admit to it, some people really aren't looking to win. What they’re looking for, is an executioner.

As far as forms go. When you practice forms, or even sparring, you are doing so with someone else who is also trained in the same style, this is not going to be true in a real fight.

True, that's why I cross spar against some of the other trainers of different styles at my gym whenever I get the chance. The aim of my post was really more to give my opinion on why I think forms training came to be included in martial arts styles and how I treat them in relation to training others in my style (Southern Style Shaolin 5 Animals Gong Fu), not to try and show that I know best or whatever lol.

Have you met any of those guys who think that their style is the best and so they don't need to learn from anyone else because nothing else can beat their style? I beleive those are usually the types who get their ass handed to them on the street.

I like to think that there is no 'best style' but there can be a best fighter and he is the one who is still standing after the fight.

As for the rest, you made some very good points and I am happy to have read them and participated in this discussion. While do I have some nasty scars attesting to some of the more violent street fights I have been in I have not been in the military so I am always keen to discuss and learn training methodology of those who train for combat.

Martial Arts should be for survival not for competitions where you get scored by looking good.

Just listen to the name, Martial Arts. It's an artform. Any martial art you learn wont do shit for you in a real situations. In real situations there will be 2 or more against you, there will be kicks in the groin, there will be knifes and guns. What you want to learn is a self-defence technique. I recommend Krav Maga.

Martial Arts should be for survival not for competitions where you get scored by looking good.

Just listen to the name, Martial Arts. It's an artform. Any martial art you learn wont do shit for you in a real situations. In real situations there will be 2 or more against you, there will be kicks in the groin, there will be knifes and guns. What you want to learn is a self-defence technique. I recommend Krav Maga.

Muscle memory, for those who don't know, is the constant repitition of a technique (be it painting, writing music, anything that takes practice really) so that you need not think about it anymore, it happens automatically when needed which allows the mind to improvise if called for, allowing the individual to think on their feet.

The above caught my eye because my Shihan never stops talking about muscle memory. He has us do these spparring routines called ippon again and again. One guy is the attacker - the uke - and the other is the receiver - the tori. They do the ippon, say, ten times and then switch roles. It's the tori (receiver) who is doing the main technique. The point is for the tori to burn the moves into muscle memory and with proper timing, smoothly and without thinking about it.

There is an interesting point about how to fight in a book called "How To Drive a Tank" by Frank Coles - he spent some time trying to find out various things, such as how survive in a fight, how to do J-turns, etc, all sorts of interesting stuff, and he finally came to the conclusion that your best bet in self-defence was to GLF - Go Like F*ck. If someone insists on attacking you (assuming they haven't got a knife or a gun) then you simply lay into them with everything you've got. There's a bit more to it than that, and he does cover muscle-memory training in the sense of repetetive training, but that's the basic essence of it.

I personally found boxing training to be exceptionally good for myself, as even though I never got to sparring with a person, I did so much pad- and bag-work that I had very good reflexes and a mean right hook, and knew how to use them! It also increased my fitness levels, I really must look into getting some equipment for home use so that I can retrain myself and get back into it.

Sadly, I lament the illegality of handguns in the UK, it does leave one vulnerable to the criminals who continue to use them. Thankfully, I live in a nice, quiet area these days.

In a proper fight, I use combinations of boxing, judo, wing chun and ninjitsu.Boxing for when I'm faster and bigger, Judo for when I'm outnumbered, wing chun for when the fight needs a quick ending and ninjitsu for the element of surprise.

I rarely get into fights.

The study of these sports are a trip in itself and good for the mind and body.

But, I've always advocated this rule; Learn how to fight, so when the time comes; you won't have to.